The present disclosure relates generally to display management, and, more particularly to display mode management systems and methods that select appropriate display modes.
Display devices, such as monitors supporting display data channel (DDC) provide several display modes. When a device such as a computer system needs to change the display mode of the device, the computer system can retrieve display modes supported by the device from extended display identification data (EDID) via an operating system or a driver.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a conventional display mode management method. When a user wants to change the display mode of a display device, in step S110, an expected display mode is received. In step S120, the computer system determines whether the expected display mode exceeds the maximum resolution of the display device. If so (Yes in step S120), in step S130, a panning mode is executed according to the expected display mode and a display mode corresponding to the maximum resolution of the display device. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a panning mode. In this example, the maximum resolution of the display device is 1280*1024, the expected display mode is 1600*1200, and region A is the area covered by the maximum resolution 1280*1024 of the display device. In the panning mode, the display mode of the display device is set to the maximum resolution thereof, and the area outside the maximum resolution, such as region B in FIG. 2, forms a virtual screen. A user can move a pointing device to view the virtual screen.
The panning mode is a well known technique, and description thereof is omitted here. If not (No in step S120), in step S140, the expected display mode is set as the display mode of the display device.
It is understood that the conventional display mode management method does not determine whether the expected display mode is supported by the display device. If the expected display mode does not exceed the maximum resolution of the display device, and is not supported by the display device, data displayed on the display device may be skewed, or even not appear.